From the first five minutes, you know its gonna be a stinker

Just terrible. Bad acting, bad script, pacing was 100% predictable and
there was not one cliché left uncopied. The only press this is going to
get is from extraneous, irrelevant tabloid schlock. Once the film is
seen by more than just the makers of the movie, its going straight to
the bargin bin. There were a few redeeming special effects but tossed
in but with the nonsensical storyline, it hardly saves the movie. To
add a twist convincingly, you have to make us care about the
protagonist, there was no one in this movie that didn't look like they
just walked out of a spray tan booth and teeth whitening salon. Just
aged actors who seem to think by flashing a smile and looking pretty,
they can compensate for their plastic personas. Did not enjoy this one
bit sad to say. Funny that almost all of the 20 something votes for
this film are 10/10, wonder where that came from? I would suggest
avoiding.

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23 out of 35 people found the following review useful:

Why was this made...

Just saw this a couple of days ago, and am still wondering why this was
made. First off the plot for this film could barely of filled a 10
minute short, and yet was stretched to fill the duration of this so
called feature. All the layers that the director mentioned he added in
the making of made no sense, didn't go anywhere and added nothing to
the film. Acting was beyond poor, especially by a certain lead man.
Lighting seemed flat. On the upside, some of the special effects seemed
pretty well done (a fake head in particular) but are not enough to save
the film.

The only interesting thing on the DVD was the making of, and interview
with the cast. Maybe they should have got that guy to direct instead.

Watch at your own risk.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:

Reasonable psychological horror thriller.

Psychosis is set in England & starts as some Eco warrior protesters
set-up a campsite in the middle of the countryside just outside London
where a new motorway is going to be built, that night they are all
brutally killed by some local man who goes mad. Jump forward over a
decade & one of the best selling crime novelists in the world Susan
Golden (Charisma Carpenter) & her corporate events organiser husband
David (Paul Sculfor) move into a large country mansion near the fields
where the murders took place, Susan has writer's block after suffering
a nervous breakdown & is feeling the pressure to finish her latest book
& feels the move away from California might be beneficial. Susan starts
to experience terrifying visions, violent hallucinations, disturbing
dreams along with strange unnatural events & believes that her new
house may be haunted. Is Susan's new home haunted? Is she having
another breakdown? Are there perfectly reasonable explanations for what
is happening? Or is there something much more sinister going on...

This British production was written & directed by Reg Traviss & is a
feature length remake of the Dreamhouse segment from the British horror
anthology film Screamtime (1986) which I have not seen so I cannot
compare the two but I have to say that I was reasonably impressed by
Psychosis & didn't think it was that bad at all, it's hardly any sort
of masterpiece but I felt it had enough going for it to make the 90
minutes I spent watching it worthwhile. The script has me in two minds,
while I liked the basic premise & I thought the final twist was
particularly good & fairly unexpected it's far from perfect with the
chief complaint being that it's so slow & it takes a very long time to
get where it's going. The final twist does turn traditional expectation
& cliché on it's head quite effectively & at the very least I was
interested in where the film was going, there's a supernatural element,
a hint of psychological thriller, some straight horror & even a bit of
a criminal subplot which all come together reasonably well.
Unfortunately I found the two main character's poorly drawn & I was
never convinced at any time that they were a loving married couple,
Susan is by far the more interesting & developed character of the two.
I am not sure what the creepy Peck guy is all about & the scene when he
first meets his new boss Susan & flashes his cock at her comes out of
nowhere & is quite unsettling!

Set mainly in rural England this looks nice enough with an impressive
looking stately home & some attractive scenery. There's some nudity &
sex including the aforementioned cock flashing & a strange scene set in
a swingers party where a man is seen lying under a clear glass table
looking up & then a naked woman sit down on the table which presumably
gives the guy a nice view! There are a few flashes of gore but they are
few & far between, the opening sequence features several hippies with
names like Snake getting killed including an axe to the head & the
climax features a gory slit throat. Originally had the working title
Vivid which was apparently changed because Vivid was also the name of a
porn company & brought about unwanted connections & associations.

With a supposed budget of about $1,200,000 this had a modest budget but
nowhere near as low as some films that are being made & getting a wide
release, the production values are good & Psychosis is well made. By
some strange coincidence Psychosis is actually the second Charisma
Carpenter film I have seen in the past couple of days after I saw House
of Bones (2011), not that I am a fan or anything but Carpenter is quite
cute & doesn't look like she's approaching forty. By the way, Psychosis
is far better than House of Bones & Carpenter puts in a much better
performance but then there's far more to work with here than she had
with the basic House of Bones which only really needed her to turn up
on set & not much else.

Psychosis is not a film for everyone, the slow pace & an ending that
(judging by the IMDb message board for Psychosis) not everyone seems to
understand although I thought it was perfectly simple & made sense
within the context of the film up to that point. It comes down to
personal opinion I suppose & mine is that I quite liked Psychosis
although I doubt I would ever want to see it again.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

Not bad horror flick but Charisma makes it for me

Huge Buffy/Angel fan and watched this on the Horror Channel (wow,
actual horror on the Horror Channel, rare these days) largely because
Charisma Carpenter is in it (just as I only watch Gossip Girl when
Michelle Tractenberg is on as Georgina). Not the best film in the world
but glad I watched it. I actually met Charisma at a convention a few
years back (just as beautiful and charming in real life) and seeing her
hairstyle in this I realise now she was in the UK filming this at the
time and had just taken the weekend off to earn herself an easy $20,000
signing 2000 autographs (including my copy of Playboy with her posing
nude).

The Good; really did remind me of Hammer House of Horror and a lot of
the old horror anthologies you used to get. I later learned that I was
spot on, this is a remake of a segment of the 1983 horror anthology
'Screamtime'. It's shocks are very good, the violence suitably nasty
and a good performance from Charisma, similar to her scenes in the
Angel ep 'To Shanshu in LA' where she's losing her mind. They throw a
lot of sex into the mix too, not only with the cheating husband and his
scantily clad bimbos but the scene where Charisma gets drug raped by
his henchman (or does she? The way she grabs his hand during their sex
makes you wonder if she's actually surrendered to her dark desires and
become a willing participant in her own ravishment?).

The twist in the tail is a kicker, very clever and probably what
attracted everyone to a remake in the first place. I had to rewatch it
a couple of times before I realised that she's being tortured not by
visions of what HAS taken place as everyone thought but by premonitions
of what's GOING to take place. Good news for her as it means she'll no
longer be driven crazy by it once it's happened and can get out of the
asylum to enjoy spending her royalties, bad news for her cheating rat
husband and the poor folks who moved into their house.

The Bad; The cheapness of the production shows through in many scenes.
Will we ever have an American film set in the UK where they don't drive
past famous landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament? (Interesting in
'Screamtime' the sub-stories were all set in Britain but framed by a
overall story set in New York to give it transatlantic appeal). Some of
the acting by the supporting cast is pretty rubbish, I'm not sure what
Justin Hawkins of the band The Darkness was doing in this, he's not
David Bowie. It's pretty obvious from the start that the husband is
trying to 'Gaslight' Charisma, he may as well have 'villain' stamped on
his forehead.

So all told, enjoyable film and I'm glad I watched it. 7/10

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12 out of 19 people found the following review useful:

A lot of the right ingredients were there but hampered by a low budget and some wooden acting this fails to make an impact.

'Psychosis' is an example of a movie that I'm sure read brilliantly on
page. The story is there, old English house, horror writer retreat;
descent into madness, at times it reminded me of the Demi Moore film
'Half Light' although that's an example of how it should be done. The
setting of 'Psychosis' is spot on creating a country atmosphere similar
to 'Watcher in the woods'. However hampered by wooden acting (save for
its two leads) and stilted dialogue, it's hard to warm to the
characters or become engaged in the story.

Charisma Carpenter and Paul Sculfor are both easy to watch and had they
been given a slightly bigger budget, tweaked dialogue and better
surrounding actors then this could have been a winner. There is some
chilling vision in the film (notably the tent scene at the start with
the man licking the feet, cryptic I know but I don't want to spoil
anything) but that vision seems to fade into clichés very quickly.
There is a twist, it's a small one but unique and again showed
potential for something better.

I watched this because I am a Charisma Carpenter fan so to other fans
out there I will say its better than Scyfy's awful 'House of Bones', so
if it comes down to the two watch this one.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

My Review Of "Psychosis"

A serial killer unleashes his blood lust at a remote
environmental-camp. Years later a horror novelist relocates to rural
England and is plagued to the point of madness by horrific haunting of
a massacre.

So I finally got around to watching Charisma Carpenter in "Psychosis".
At first as it started out I thought maybe I had the wrong movie
because it looked like a tradition psycho slasher flick however I was
pleasantly surprised. After the story took off, the way that the film
kept me constantly focused on the deceit of her husband, and constantly
trying to figure out just what the film was about, it totally threw me
for a loop with the ending. Brilliant execution of the story. This was
not an easy script to keep cohesive and relatable. At any point the
film could have fell apart with all the subtext and micro plots that
seemed to flutter about in the telling of this story.

For the most part I felt I was watching a psychological thriller just a
bit above Lifetime Movie abilities and constantly wondering what the
beginning had to do with f*ckall in this movie. It kept me guessing and
confused visually as to the characters that played out in the Macbeth
styled dance of twisted tales of betrayal and deception. The
cinematography was gritty and yet polished with its total control of
the film by jumping from micro plot to micro plot. Is she crazy? Is she
psychic? or is some people totally f*cking with her?! I just kept
bouncing back. This turned out to be a really great film and you don't
realize just how intricate and detailed the plot is until the last 15
minutes of the film and that is got me totally into the story and made
me drop my jaw. The ending tied it all up so poignantly and perfectly.
A great psychological profile of the depths of human psychosis.

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7 out of 12 people found the following review useful:

Direct remake of "Screamtime" 1983

EDIT- At the time I was writing I was not aware that it was in fact a
"Remake" of the second story in the 1983 film "Screamtime". Therefore
you can understand why I thought that it was a direct rip off of this
particular movie. Being very fond of that particular short, I was a bit
upset because I thought someone was ripping it off! Amusing in
hindsight I suppose. For your enjoyment here is my original review and
feelings written before knowing it was a 'remake'::

I will keep this review short but I'm still in shock after seeing this
movie. Not because it was scary, not because it shocked me, not because
I was bowled over by its brilliance. No, simply because I've never
shook my head in disbelief at such outright plagiarism in a
movie.Clearly the Director was really really hoping that no one had
ever seen the fantastic little anthology horror film "Scream time" from
1983, more specifically, the second story in this film "Dream house".
Now the stories in "Scream time" are relatively short since it's an
anthology movie so in order to pad out "Psychosis", the director had at
least to attempt to introduce some other little elements to attempt to
keep things interesting before the scene for scene stealing begins.
Unfortunately these elements are dull, lots of sex which is not
thrilling in the least and flat acting. The movie falls flat very
quickly overall to be honest and towards the end and dotted throughout,
the 'hallucinations' of Charisma Carpenter are about the most
interesting thing happening. Her name is the most charismatic thing
about the movie, it's never scary due to some dull direction,
predictable soundtrack and characters that are never in the least bit
likable at any point. It starts off initially with a "slasher film"
type prologue which really does nothing for the rest of the film, only
serving to confuse and then we watch as Carpenter slowly descends into
the "Psychosis" of the title. On my first viewing I already picked up
on how much it was stealing from the "Dream house" episode of "Scream
time" to the point where I was pointing out things before they even
happened. I could not believe it. The director should be rightly
ridiculed for such stealing and I'm sure more and more people will pick
up on this as they see it. It's a shame because movies like this will
get lots of exposure and acclaim from people none the wiser where as
"Scream time" remains unreleased on DVD anywhere in the world and is a
far more scary and interesting little 80's film. Spoilers------
Charisma's Hallucinations are wholesale lifted from "Dream house". This
will make sense if you've seen it. She constantly see's someone in
black playing with a football outside in her garden but when she goes
out to tell him off she's gone. 'Dream house' -The main actress
constantly see's a little boy riding on a bike outside in her garden
but when she goes out to tell him off he's gone. In "Psychosis" the
husband calls a Psychic to the house to investigate after Charisma has
complained about all the visions she's been seeing and the psychic
tells Charisma that there is nothing there at all.

Almost exactly the same scene happens in 'Dream house' and the Psychic
tells the husband she is possibly mad.

Towards the end, when the murders start to play out more extended, the
madman stabs the victims repeatedly and at one point, charisma grabs a
telephone and throws it at the vision, (the madman is strangling the
victim using the telephone) which promptly vanishes. In "Dream house",
the murders are playing out and the actress grabs a telephone and
throws it at the vision of the man stabbing and strangling the victim
with the telephone wire which promptly vanishes.

At the end, Charisma's husband (Charisma is in a mental hospital after
all this) greets the "new owner" and we are introduced to the new
people moving in, all of whom we've seen previously in the visions like
the kid playing with the football etc. In "Dream House", exactly the
same thing happens. The husband welcomes the new owners, says they hope
they will be happy there and all around him, the people we have seen
being murdered are working around him, like the decorator painting the
window and the boy riding the bike.

The husband gets into his car and is attacked from behind, has his
throat slashed and goes into a fit, holding his foot down on the
accelerator. The radio announces that a crazed murderer has escaped
from a mental hospital and is on the loose.

It's quite sad that it's so obvious really. Clearly this director
though he would get away with it but I reckon it's going to come back
on him at one point or another. Watch "Scream time" and the "dream
house" episode if you can get a copy. It's infinitely better than this
poor excuse for a copy of a movie.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:

Not convincing

In the intro some hippie kids set up camp somewhere to protest the
expansion of a motorway. Somebody is watching them, then someone else
kills them. The killer acts all wild and crazy as if he's zombified.

Years later a couple moves into a mansion in England. She's a famous
crime novel writer, he's an even organizer. She's anxious, every sound
she hears makes her nervous. She goes exploring and finds a couple
having sex in the middle of her woods, the creepy guy then exposes
himself to her. She sees some kid playing with a ball but when she goes
after him he vanishes. Later her husband introduces the creepy guy as
the new grounds-keeper.

We learn that she's had in her past a massive mental breakdown. Now
she's working on her new bestseller and is being pressured by her
publisher. The quiet country is supposed to give her peace to work. But
she keeps seeing things, namely some rocker she saw on TV, the killings
from the intro, and the same killer running around her house. Her
husbands distances himself a bit from her spending more time at work.
One of the events he goes to is some type of party/orgy where the
rocker is in attendance and the husband has fun with some girl who has
been promised more than just hook ups.

When the creepy guy cooks her dinner she faints and sees more stuff,
namely all sorts of crimes in her house. As a result she kills the
creepy guy by accident. Now it all unravels. She ends up in a mental
institution. Her husband gets a nice royalty check and sells the
mansion that will be turned into a clinic and lots of familiar
characters show up that either makes things clear or raise more
questions in so far as the story and the woman's madness is concerned.

Movies about the British countryside, country people and madness are
almost a subgenre in horror. And they are usually weak. This one is
watchable. But it lacks something. Carpenter's character isn't likable
enough and I don't think it helps to present her as already a little
wacky. Stories like these are usually not entirely satisfactory because
they presume a level of superhuman planning and all has to go right for
the plans of the villain to work. The violence isn't very good. The
villain isn't clear enough, from the main character's perspective,
everyone is a villain and that just doesn't work. As with many English
movies we get full frontal male nudity and little female nudity.
Psychosis manages to create some creepiness and tension, but not
enough, and lacks the atmosphere to engage the audience entirely.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:

Infectious

I really wanted to love this movie. I just can't though. For all its
good intentions and all the nice ideas, it is too flawed in the end.
While obviously not a big production, it does feel bad from the get go.
Poor editing choices and cinematography do not help the case either.
It's not badly done, but you can see that it was rushed and therefor
not much care has been given to some shots and performances. There are
a few occasions where Charisma seems out of it. And while some may call
it a nice addition to her role it is obvious that this was not meant
that way.

Charismas husband (in the movie that is) is even worse than any other
player in the film. There is the gardener, but you almost don't care
about his performance (especially during a dinner scene). But the
husband does a good job at being bad. Which is a bad thing for the
movie. The ending might feel like a saving grace (and I don't know the
movie another reviewer who's ecstatic about it, raves about), but don't
let that fool you.

You might just get a psychosis from suffering through this movie...

"Psychosis" started out well enough, but then it went downhill quite
fast, crumbling into boredom and a general lack of purpose.

I am not going to even bother with the storyline here, as it was a very
weak and thin storyline. The events that took place seemed irrelevant
and at often incoherent.

The movie trots ahead at a very slow pace, and nothing overly
interesting happens, and as such this movie is a test to get through.
And I have to admit that I didn't make it through. I gave up and had to
turn it off out of sheer boredom.

Although this movie was acted out by mostly people that I hadn't seen
before, there was a single familiar face; Charisma Carpenter. But not
even her presence in the movie was enough to keep anything in this
movie afloat. Now, it is always nice to see new and unfamiliar faces,
but when they have nothing proper to work with, then they are fighting
a losing uphill battle.

Don't get lured in and suckered in by the DVD cover, because the movie
is not even remotely anything near as interesting as the DVD cover
makes it out to be. This movie was bad with a capital B. We all have
different like and dislikes, and "Psychosis" surely wasn't even close
to the edge of being in my liking.